- Thanks to Fiverr for kindly sponsoring today's video.
Perhaps the most common question I get on this channel, is,
how on earth can a gardener possibly produce enough compost
for a no-dig garden?
Well, my question is how can any gardener
possibly produce enough compost for any type of garden?
So whether it's dig or no dig, you need compost.
And there's no real difference in terms of quantities.
It's a bit of a myth
that no-dig requires far more compost
than traditional gardening.
Now I'll be the first to admit
that I need to buy in compost for this garden.
And it's an area of frustration,
because in an ideal world,
I'd love to not have to rely on spending money,
because when it comes to compost,
I think we all can appreciate
how quickly the costs can mount up.
And I'll question if perhaps mulching my beds annually
with two to three centimeters of compost,
is too much, because speaking to Stephanie Hafferty,
she has 14 years, no-dig professional growing experience,
by the way,
she was saying that she now mulches her own personal garden,
with just a centimeter of compost every year.
And that's over half less of the compost requirements
my garden uses,
and it's potentially over half of the cost saved
When we were having catch ups,
she was saying how she's frustrated
with how gardening is now portrayed
as not being affordable, or accessible.
And I can totally understand where she's coming from.
You know, there's things that I've done on this channel
recently that haven't helped contribute
to that portrayal of gardening.
I think that needs to change.
To put it bluntly,
I'm really angry with the way
that the cost of living is going,
and how unfair it is for so many families.
And so over the last few weeks,
I've been really carefully thinking
about how I'm gonna change the direction of this channel,
and also my approach to growing,
to actually help showcase how affordable, and accessible,
it can be.
So in this video, I'm gonna try and unpack
exactly how I plan to improve no-dig,
both in terms of growing styles,
but also in terms of availability of free information,
and making information very accessible,
so that no matter what your situation is,
or what your location is, there's something there
that can help you produce more food, and save more money.
So big part of this is, obviously,
compost is really important,
and every garden will always need compost.
but actually bringing in other methods, techniques,
and styles, that build upon a reliance
on just using compost.
And to help with this,
my team and I have started quite a big growing project,
where we're creating multiple gardens,
to speed up the way that we can research, learn, and share,
all of these different methods,
to help you grow more delicious and nutritious food,
affordably.
In order to make growing food,
and constantly improving soil health and fertility possible,
on a very tight budget,
there were five areas, core areas
which I'm gonna be focusing on:
The first is low cost infrastructure,
which involves designing and sharing plans, and tutorials,
for low cost compost systems, water infrastructure,
undercover growing, all of those kind of things
that make a big difference
to the actual supportive role of growing food.
The second is experimental growing.
This is pushing the limits of timing, planting style,
mulches and techniques.
The third is amendments.
And it's about creating free, or ultra low cost,
and I'll credit Jadan for that, microbe-rich,
and mineral-rich plant feeds,
not just for plant health and yields,
but also to improve the soil quality.
Fourth is compost,
about creating higher quality compost faster,
in greater quantity,
and celebrating readily available resources.
And the fifth area is seeds, that's seed saving,
all of the different varieties of crops,
and also, potentially, breeding new varieties.
So if we actually take the first letter
of each of these five aims, we get the acronym LEACS.
So being a Welshman, and accepting a butchered spelling
of one of my favorite vegetables,
moving forward, whenever I talk about this project
and area of work, is gonna be known as Project LEACS.
My big focus for the channel moving forward,
is to integrate as many of the ideas and aims
of Project LEACS as possible.
And you'll see a few familiar faces on that journey as well.
Something that I've noticed as well,
is that when you garden with a restricted budget,
it's actually one of the most sustainable ways
of growing food,
because you're limited to using local resources,
and also making the most of waste resources.
And it's Earth Day 2022.
But I think it should be Earth Day every single day.
You know, composting is perhaps the most superior way
that us home growers can recycle.
And even if we have a tiny garden,
the amount of food that comes out of that,
will have a fantastic impact
on helping to reduce food miles.
One of the things that I really believe is gonna be so vital
for this journey,
is to share as much data, evidence,
all the results as possible.
And the new site where I'm sat in right now,
is gonna be a core part of that.
One of the gardens that we're creating at the moment
is actually experimenting 11 other methods of growing,
which builds upon no-dig and test them
against a control bed.
And I'll share those 11 experiments in just a moment.
Firstly, I wanted to quickly introduce you
to this new growing site,
which we have named in Welsh, Dan Yr Onnen,
which means under the ash tree.
This is a beautiful protected ash tree,
in kind of the middle of the seven acre project,
which we have secured a long term lease for,
from a lovely family who are so behind all of the projects
that we're trying to achieve, and carry out.
Now I'm a big fan of logos.
They, you make something feel legitimate.
And I wanted a logo for this project.
So I went onto Fiverr to find a freelancer to create one.
- Fiverr is a site that I've been using for many years.
And what it does is it connects us with freelancers,
to help us either overcome problems
or challenges, or to carry out tasks,
that we might not have the time or the skill, to achieve.
One of the reasons why I keep on using Fiverr,
is that project turnarounds are so quick,
and freelancers to suit any budget.
I mainly use five for graphic design services,
like designing the Dan Yr Onnen logo
which was done in under two days, absolutely amazing.
But there are services for everyone.
And just to show you how creative you can get with Fiverr,
I actually tasked another freelancer
to create a unique font that we can use on this channel.
And it's actually the font that we've been using
in this video.
And I also got another freelancer to animate the logo.
So if you're working on a particular creative project
or you need a set of skills
that you don't have, to help you with something,
or you're simply curious about what services they offer,
head to fiverr.co/huwrichards, and use the code HUWRICHARDS,
to get 10% off.
We're splitting this project into two stages:
Stage one is the bottom two acres,
which is far more of a horticulture experimental,
veg growing type setup.
And then the big field behind me,
which is five acres is gonna be more of a focus,
on agroforestry, and using elements from that,
to help with the horticulture.
So behind me, the experimental garden is in progress.
And that's where we've got those 11 experiments
that I've mentioned.
They're on the screen right now, in my own font,
which is really cool.
And this is gonna be such a fascinating space,
because the diversity of what we're trialing,
against a control no-dig bed, is honestly,
it gets me so excited.
So I'll actually be doing specific videos on this channel,
just giving you updates with how those are going.
So behind me, we have a herb garden,
which we're actually looking to supply
a local farmer's market, and a couple of restaurants,
and this main garden, well it's the mini garden behind me,
is gonna be a really important focus.
It's 10 by six meters in size.
And we're gonna use that as a demonstration site,
to show what you can do in a confined, small space,
including trying as much as possible
for it to be self-sufficient,
in terms of creating its own compost.
So we've got a mini poly tunnel going in there,
lots of beds, lots of containers.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
So this is one of the latest installments.
It's a rainwater capture system,
using IBC tanks to suit a midrange budget.
But what we're also gonna be doing
in a couple of weeks time is, using tarpaulin,
creating a design in a temporary way,
of capturing a lot of rainwater, in a small space,
on a tight budget.
And I'm really excited to share that.
We've just started planting up this poly tunnel.
Now the main goal for this
is actually starting all of the seedlings,
for the experimental garden.
And also we've got this wifi garden in the back
that we're developing,
mainly because it looks like a wifi icon symbol.
But that's where we're just gonna be able
to grow a little bit more, in terms of bulk produce,
to take home and eat.
This section is brand new.
Well, the whole project is brand new,
only a few weeks old, but we've terraced this,
nearly an acre of land.
And the idea for this terracing,
is to focus on the fifth kind of core element
of Project LEACS, which is the seeds,
and testing out as many different varieties as possible,
doing seed saving, and potentially, as mentioned before,
a bit of seed breeding.
It's gonna be a big project to get the soil fertility up,
but we've got a lot of things in the pipeline,
to do that, hopefully for free.
Where I'm sat here is the top of the car park
'cause we're also looking at turning this
into a center for regenerative agriculture.
And that's another logo concept,
that we've worked on with Fiverr.
But this area is gonna be
the core kind of composting section,
where we're gonna do a couple of chicken composting designs,
all sorts of experimenting of different recipes,
and working out volumes, quantities,
different kind of microbial solutions to put on,
that are all homemade,
to speed it up and increase their quality.
And also as a core base,
for creating all sorts of different amendments,
which really excites me.
When I was chatting to Stephanie Hafferty
about amendments, this is gonna be my new amendment corner,
for the main garden.
She was saying how excited she is,
how ferments and amendments can bring so much value
to gardeners, and help really save a lot of money.
And I'm really excited
to really be putting this whole aspect through its paces.
There's a huge amount of content
related to everything in this video,
coming out on this channel starting next week.
And if you want to be involved,
or if you want to support Project LEACS,
there's actually an email address down below.
And finally, I want to say thank you to Fiverr,
for sponsoring today's video,
and helping really support this project.
Don't forget to check out
their amazing offering of services,
and use the code HUWRICHARDS, all in capitals, for 10% off.